I'm showing increased DPS with the haste pot(assuming pre-pot).

3 minute fight:

Haste pot - 13405 dps
Strength pot - 13323 dps

4 minute fight:

Haste pot - 13086 dps
Strength pot - 13027 dps

5 minute fight:

Haste pot - 13182 dps
Strength pot - 13134 dps

Petrocity: False. You are thinking as if the only effect of speeding up melee swings while stacking SoV is to increase the white damage. Speeding up the stacking also increases your damage from seal procs as well as Judgement damage. If you don't believe me then go set up a simulator of haste over 15 seconds fully stacked and haste over 15 seconds during ramp up. The difference in haste valuation in that situation is noticeable, the haste is more valuable during the ramp up time.

You can also see this difference if you tell your simulator of choice to model changing targets very regularly. You will notice the value of haste going up quickly if you have to swap targets more often. Most simulator base settings model a 5 minute fight with a single ramp up period and so this effect is minimized.

In my spreadsheet haste increases in value from 1.29 to 1.40 when it is set up to model swapping targets every 20 seconds instead of every 60.

Bigbeat: You are arguing against your own point. Bloodlust increases the benefit of haste by 27-30% and only increases the benefit of Strength by roughly 45% of that amount, ballpark 13.5%. Also your cooldowns are AP cooldowns which increase the benefit of haste but have zero effect on Str contributions. Wings multiplies all damage by 1.2, this obviously does not change the relative value of haste/str since both increase by ... 20%.

The benefit you see averaged over the course of a fight shows haste to be the best by far. The benefit of haste in a Wings, AP proc, Bloodlust situation is even stronger than those numbers show because haste scales drastically better in that situation.

You're right; my mistake.

Makes me wonder, when modeling DPS increases between professions, does it take into account that Engineering lets you reach 5 stacks of SoV faster? Obviously this isn't an easy thing to model, and depends largely on the encounter - that is, the difference between fights like Festergut where you will have 5 stacks throughout the fight and fights like Lich King where, assuming the glove enchant lines up with SoV building, it would be a bigger increase.

I was messing around in Rawr today trying to provide some numbers to back up advice to a new guild member, and I found an unexpected result. I was going to tell him to swap out his Exorcism glyph for Consecration, which he doesn't have. Ret pally 101, right? But according to Rawr, this substitution amounts to a 44 dps loss against a humanoid boss. This might explain why he chose the glyphs he has.

What accounts for this result? Is it possible that Exorcism glyph is sometimes better than Consecration? Is it just some kind of issue with Rawr? Has anyone looked into this question recently?

Your Rawr configuration is messed up most likely. Regardless of what Rawr says, at least until 4.0 which will change things, you always want to use the Cons glyph over Exorcism glyph. This is largely due to mana savings (you could run out of mana by casting Cons more often) and the GCD savings which Rawr models, sometimes it is not modeling right. Also the Exo glyph is very weak ~40 dps in the best gear.

Hello Paladins,

Quick question for you all. I have a Tankadin alt, and I frequently run heroics with a ret pally in my guild. When we pair up and do our blessings, I obviously put Sanctuary up on us, and he insists on putting up Kings over might, saying that he tested them both (without Sanctuary already up I'm guessing) and that Kings is better for DPS. Since Sanctuary offers strength/stamina now, I feel like the little bit of intellect/agility that would barely help his DPS would be well overshadowed by the extra AP that Might would give him. Am I missing something about stacking Sanc/Kings, or should he be giving himself Might?

Thanks for your help!

With a trinket that gives Strength on proc (Like [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] or [Death's Choice]), you need close to 3000 Strength unbuffed for Kings to pull ahead of Improved Might... and that's only while the trinket proc is up.

Might is always going to be the better choice. Unless he's using a TON of leather agility gear or agi/AP offset pieces, the gained crit from 10% more agility isn't going to tip the scales in the favor of Kings... and even then it probably wouldn't.

I don't know if this is an allowed topic. We'll see how this goes.

AutoHotkey - Free Mouse and Keyboard Macro Program with Hotkeys and AutoText

AutoHotKey is a program that mimics the behavior of keyboards like the G15. In the context of WoW it permits the user to create simple, yet incredibly powerful macros that can decrease key press latency and specifically for Retribution it can eliminate human reaction time from Divine Storm! procs. Usage of AHK may be in violation of the "one action per key press" rule that's been decreed by the blue oracles, however I doubt they'd start banning users for utilizing the features of their G15 keyboard. Although AHK has the possibility of becoming more prevalent, so it may raise a few more eyebrows.

I use AHK to perform two major functions that I believe makes my DPS both slightly higher and more consistent.

1) Key press latency

Standard WoW forces you to continuously press and release keys in order to minimize gaps between abilities. The macros I have designed allow you to hold a key down rather than continuously press and release until the previous GCD has finished. This function can greatly minimize key press latency, therefore increasing your DPS by squeezing more actions per unit time. It's also a huge quality of life improvement and may delay the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome.

2) 2P T10 Divine Storm! procs

Divine Storm is ahead of Exorcism, Consecration, and Hammer of Wrath in priority. Therefore it's a technically a DPS loss if you get a DS proc the split second before you use a lower priority ability, yet don't react quickly enough to press DS instead. AHK can automate this process, although it's "dumb" and prone to error until all of your abilities are on cooldown. For example, if I hold down my Exorcism key, then AHK will spam a loop of Divine Storm>Exorcism>Divine Storm>Exorcism until I release my Exorcism key.


Here's the logic of my macros:

Judgement: 1
CS: 2
DS: 3
Conc: 4
Exo: 5
HoW: 6

J>DS (when I hold 1, it spams 13 in a loop)
C>DS (when I hold 2, it spams 23 in a loop)
DS (when I hold 3, it spams 3 in a loop)
DS>Conc (when I hold 4, it spams 34 in a loop)
DS>Exo (when I hold 5, it spams 35 in a loop)
DS>HoW (when I hold 6, it spams 36 in a loop)

Below is the AHK script that I currently use.

There is a thread on EJ dedicated to Autohotkey.

The blue posts regarding autohotkey are quite clear. Drop to the end of the thread for more reinforcement of the rules.

Your macro to repeat a single attack to reduce/remove latency is acceptable usage. The loop two abilities alternation is not acceptable.

I know negative action has been taken in the past when people have been reported (in-game report) using a G15 or Autohotkey in a disapproved fashion. I would suspect they also have some rough systems to try to detect "illegal" usage - such as watching for commands repeated on a truly perfect sequence (for example every .2000 seconds on the dot). There are many different pattern detection systems possible which could be employed to monitor such activity. How often they may review such logs and how often actually take any action based on them, who knows.

There was some brief debate in the Ret UI thread regarding press and release being two different functions (you can press and hold, then release at a later, specific time). Preliminary evidence leaned toward this as acceptable. If you can program Autohotkey to perform one action on press (example: DS) and another on release (example: Cons or Exo) you could spam this key per normal (with the ordinary repetitive stress injury risks a competitive Ret runs) and get good use out of the Divine Storm! procs.

I am unsure whether AHK can be programmed for separate press and release. Note: I tried the macaroon suggestion - within about 5 minutes it bugged and those keys would not function on press or release, until then it was smooth. I did not test further, assuming it was the mod. I do not want something unreliable that makes it impossible to use keys mid-fight.

I moved all the customization discussion and giant blocks of macros to The AutoHotKey Thread where it belongs. Look for your posts there.

You don't want to make it do that as it's against the ToS.

So I'm going to be doing herald of the titans this saturday, am I right in assuming the priority order with 2 pieces of tier 8 is:

Judgement > (HoW) > Crusader strike > Divine storm > Consecration > Exorcism?

Hammer of Justice, Valks and Spell hit.

Hammer of Justice seems like the perfect ability for stunning Valkyr in phase two of the Lich King encounter. It's a 6 second stun, it has no ramp up time, it has very low opportunity cost, and most raid comps have multiple paladins to deal with other mechanics of the fight.

The one downside to using HoJ is that it's a spell, and as such uses the spell hit table to determine hits/misses. This, combined with the Valkyrs being lvl 83 makes it very likely that a HoJ will miss.

The general strategy to overcome this problem (see Space Shuttle Challenger) is to assign more than one person to HoJ. What was a 1-in-10 chance then drops to a 1-in-100 chance. However, the valks suffer from diminishing returns, so I'm a little bit curious as to what happens when two people try to HoJ the same valk.

Correct me if any of this is wrong:

Possibility 1 - Both Miss. Nothing happens, the valk is not stunned, and does not suffer diminishing returns
Possibility 2 - One misses, one hits. Valk is stunned for 6 seconds, and is now on 'half' DRs.
Possibility 3 - Both Hit. Second effect lands within 3 seconds of the first one landing. I'm unsure about this. Is it -

Option 1 - First one lands, second one sees a 'more powerful spell active' message. Valk is on half DR.
Option 2 - First one lands, second one lands. Valk is stunned for 6 seconds. Valk is on quarter DR.
Option 3 - Something else?

Possibility 4 - Both Hit. Second effect lands more than 3 seconds after the first one lands. Is it -

Option 1 - First one lands, second one sees a 'more powerful spell active' message. Valk is on half DR.
Option 2 - First one lands, second one lands. Valk is stunned for (4-6) seconds+3 seconds. Valk is on quarter DR.
Option 3 - Something else?

Finally, How long does it take valks to get from landing to the edge of the platform. Essentially - Is it possible to hit a stun when they first land, and then get a second full duration stun when they reach the edge?

Val'kyr Shadowguard are level 80. A level 80 player needs 4% spell hit or 105 hit rating to be hit capped versus a level 80 mob.

Retribution will by default have 105 or more hit rating. Protection can easily obtain such levels of hit rating in ICC gear. I am no expert at Holy talents, but doesn't Enlightened Judgements apply to all spells and melee abilities? If so, then they also effectively have 105 hit rating.

Hammer of Justice and Holy Wrath should never miss a Val'kyr Shadowguard.

In any case, you cannot Hammer of Justice a stunned mob, regardless of the source of the stun; the spell will simply fail to cast.

That's not true.

As you can see, the second stun is affected by DR, even if the first one didn't finish.

Example:
HoJ 1 hits Val'kyr - stunned for 6 seconds. Diminishing returns rank 1.
HoJ 2 hits Val'kyr - still stunned from first, no application of debuff (which would wear off before first anyway). Diminishing returns rank 2.

The 2nd HoJ has made Diminishing Returns worse for no added benefit. Additionally, if Paladins one and two both happen to be victims and carried by the Val'kyr, no one will stun your target.

While our guild hasn't had a 25man kill yet (Catch-22 - we lost members, cannot get a full raid reliably to kill, no kill = no heroic, no heroic = no recruits, no recruits = cannot get full raid), we are having success on Val'kyr stuns. As soon as the 3rd lands we hit Holy Wrath (or a warrior tank uses Shockwave - coordinated not to use both). All 3 are stunned together - this is great for cleave purposes. Stun wears off. Sometime before they get more than 3/4 to the edge we do another HW. Another second and a half of no-move cleave. If one Val'kyr is dicey a single target stun for an extra second or two is more than enough to succeed.

In general AOE stun has been more effective - no issues where one (or more) single target stunners are the carry victims, screwing your elabourate plans, and no timing issues where someone is slow and a Val'kyr leaves the stack which reduces cleave.

Even more important than stuns are slow effects - make sure you've got people assigned to keep the Val'kyr at that minimum 50% speed. FoK+Crippling Poison (or Deadly Brew), Piercing Howl, Slow if multiple Arcane Mages, or Hamstring if multiple Warriors.

Finally HW with default 30 second CD is up for every set of Val'kyr. HoJ with default 60 second CD is not up every Val'kyr wave - you would need to spec the reduced CD, which I cannot figure out how to do without losing DPS increasing talents.

Edit: Note, it's also important to coordinate the stuns so you do not overstun. If people are trigger happy with random stuns you get immunity when you things go pearshaped and you suddenly need a clutch stun for that last 5% near the edge. Also people have wasted DPS GCDs on stuns.

If Valkyrs are your biggest problem, and for many guilds they are, you can easily take the points from holy (SoComm is superior anyway) and some support talents in ret (choose the one that is covered by other people in the raid) and spec for Imp HoJ (and possibly Div Guardian). You loose quite a bit of dps in other phases, depending on your raid it might be worth it.

Holy and Protection can both easily pick up 40 second HoJ. Our setup tends to be the two Holy Paladins covering two Val'kyr every wave, and then I rotate my HoJ with another class every other wave.

As Tharia mentioned, 3/17/51 is a viable spec for Retribution that would allow for 2/2 Improved Hammer of Justice. Although you'd need enough buff flexiblity so that another player could cover two of the three following buffs: Heart of the Crusader, Swift Retribution, and Improved Blessing of Might. This would come at a cost of 6% Seal/Holy Vengeance/Judgement damage or about 2.2% less DPS while SoV is active and no DPS loss while SoC is active.

Your guild will probably need you to have AM if you get to HM LK so they should probably find a way for you to alternate stuns rather that resort to getting you to have a 40 second HoJ.

A question for those that have been on HM PP, which seal have you been using through this or have you been switching. Finding my DPS is getting hurt badly having to switch targets all the time to the experiments and having my SoV stack falling off all the time.

Exemplar - the AoE stun strat might be effective for normal mode, or if your cleaving dps is exceptional on hard mode, but using Holy Wrath instead of HoJ loses 3 seconds of dps time. This could be the difference between getting the valks to drop their target or not. Also, it makes sense to use all your stuns early, as this will help to keep the valks close together for cleaves if people are picked up slightly out of position.

Also, you've missed one of the best slows in Desecration, which only costs a minor spec change for your unholy dk and goes up automatically on all targets. It's important to have those other slows available as backup, but putting up slow/hamstring uses up a valuable gcd for your dpsers.

We've had both our holy pallys respec for 40 second stun and then our prot warrior uses concussion blow on the last one. The last one typically drops a second after the first two anyway, so the 1 second less stun time shouldn't be an issue, and might even help with keeping them closer together.

One holy pally dropped imp devo, the other dropped Divine Sac. I can see the loss of divine sac being an issue for certain parts of the fight, but using 6 healers it shouldn't be necessary.

All our rets stay 11 points in holy for aura mastery.

We have been using a strat of every valk wave we stack on a marked player that controls where the raid moves all of phase 2 to make sure all 3 valks go in the same direction. As a result after the 3rd valk lands our protection warrior shock waves followed by our other ret using Holy Wrath and finished off by my Holy Wrath (if any of us is picked up we call it on vent and everyone moves up a spot and one of our holy paladins gets the 3rd stun with holy wrath.

This strat has been successful every week since we have killed him the first time using (1 fury, 2 combat, 1 mut, 2 ret, 2 frost, 1 unholy) as well as with missing a lot of melee cleave (2 ret, 2 combat, 1 mut, 1 unholy, 1 enh).

Both times unholy dk's did pick up desecration, however our main slow has been our mut rogue with 2/2 deadly brew.